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On July 06 2017 03:54 Azuzu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:47 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 KwarK wrote:On July 06 2017 03:43 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 03:41 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:38 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 03:36 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:29 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 03:27 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:23 Logo wrote:
[quote]
My solution is to not act like all people who don't own a home are all financially illiterate and recognize there's plenty of areas where there are other significant problems in relation to people getting homes. And where exactly did I say that "all" of them are financially illiterate? I very clearly said "a majority." Don't get your panties in a bunch over phantom posts. What's the difference between majority and all when you're just making something up based on a small anecdote with no backing anyways? If I were making the comments the same way as you are the majority of people not buying a house would be doing so for completely different reasons. So do you disagree with the proposition that a large segment of Americans is financially illiterate? I disagree with the assertion being made purely using your personal anecdote as evidence. That seems pretty reasonable no? That's about as fraudulent as reasoning gets. It's akin to disagreeing with the assertion that the sky is blue simply because I said that I saw that it was blue. Cut the bullshit and give a real answer to my question. Disagreeing that the 5? 10? 50? people you talked to for renting is a representative sample of 128 million people is not at all the same that your observation of the sky is a reasonable observation of the sky. There is a colossal body of evidence to support his original point of which everyone in this topic is already aware of. He wasn't saying "I saw X, therefore X is normal", he was saying "you know that normal thing X, I recently saw it up close, wow". Except that's not at all how the original post was framed. It wasn't "Hey this thing you'd totally expect I saw first hand" it was "I was shocked..." I think the problem is he colored non homeowners in the negative light of fiscal irresponsibility, when the sample he was looking at was non home owners who also happen to be on the rental market which are two very different subsets of people.
Yeah, basically that was my issue with the original post especially since xDaunt is renting a single property which is going to have a certain target market compared to other places (he'd probably have a very different experience if he was renting a luxury unit). On top of it having a tone that didn't convey any sympathy which make it seems like it's talking down to people unnecessarily.
I have no issue with highlighting the need for better fiscal responsibility, the lack of it in the US, or the problems with credit in the modern day & age.
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On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal.
That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without.
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On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without.
"did not keep up"
When in the history were those things level?
It is pretty much through all our history, that the economic and social systems surrounding people were not understood by the majority of the people.
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On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without.
I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it.
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On July 06 2017 02:02 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +
Why Summer Jobs Don't Pay
Why can't kids today just work their way through college the way earlier generations did?
The answer to that question isn't psychology. It's math. A summer job just doesn't have the purchasing power it used to, especially when you compare it with the cost of college.
Let's take the example of a working-class student at a four-year public university who's getting no help from Mom and Dad. In 1981-'82, the average full cost to attend was $2,870. That's for tuition, fees and room and board.
The maximum Pell Grant award back then for free tuition help from the government was $1,800. That leaves our hypothetical student on the hook for just about $1,000. Add in a little pocket money, too — say $35 a week. That makes an extra $1,820 for the year on top of the $1,000 tuition shortfall.
Now, $3.35 an hour was the minimum wage back then. So, making $2,870 meant working 842 hours. That's 16 hours a week year-round — a decent part-time job. It's also about nine hours a day for three straight months — a full-time, seven-day-a-week summer job. Or, more likely, a combination of both. In short: not impossible. Far from it.
For today's public university student, though, the numbers have all changed in the wrong direction.
For the school year that just ended, the total of tuition, fees and room and board for in-state students at four-year public universities was $20,090. The maximum Pell Grant didn't keep pace with that: It was $5,815. That left our hypothetical student on the hook for $14,275.
A student would now have to work 37 hours a week, every week of the year, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, to get by. Research shows that when college students work more than 20 hours a week, their studies suffer. If they're working full time, many will take longer to finish and end up paying even more.
To cover today's costs with a low-skilled summer job? Over 90 days, a student would need to work 21.9 hours a day.
Of course, you could seek work in a city with a higher minimum wage like Washington, D.C. ($12.50, as of July 1) or Seattle, where it's $13 an hour, on its way to $15 (but there, low-wage workers may have lost out on annual income).
Rents tend to be higher in those places, too.
Plus side: If you're working that much, you may not need to pay rent because you're hardly sleeping.
No wonder students are borrowing so much these days.
SourceIn America, where you pay more for garbage. But everyone tells you it is worth the money. But in the 1980s we could pay for college on 16 hours of work a week year round.
The education bubble is going to hurt.
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United States43989 Posts
On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it.
The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant.
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On July 06 2017 03:26 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:13 KwarK wrote:
I don't see the issue with classical liberalism at all. A functioning free market economy that provides a strong foundation for people from all backgrounds to compete on an even basis through the provision of healthcare, education, housing and so forth for all without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual preference etc. Seems pretty much ideal to me.
The problem is that in America you can't join the political right without pledging allegiance to the anti-science anti-gay agenda and even the free market economics is little more than crony capitalism. Meanwhile the centre left comes under fire for not being extreme enough, as if that's some kind of failing. This is the same political left that subsidizes wind and solar power so heavily that other forms of renewable energy can't compete? Or that threatened a boycott of an entire corporation because one executive says something off the clock? Or, in the case of California, boycotts specific states whose social legislative agendas it disagrees with? Or that in many states across many professions makes union membership effectively mandatory? And that's before taking into account the "liberal religion" argument, which argues that American liberals have founded an atheist religion with all the accoutrements thereof and are trying to establish themselves as the official government religion by selectively using the establishment clause against other religions. It seems like the Democratic party uses Enlightenment ideals only by coincidence.
What sorts of ideals permit the nomination and election of Donald Trump, a man whose word is not credible?
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On July 06 2017 04:18 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 03:26 Buckyman wrote:On July 06 2017 03:13 KwarK wrote:
I don't see the issue with classical liberalism at all. A functioning free market economy that provides a strong foundation for people from all backgrounds to compete on an even basis through the provision of healthcare, education, housing and so forth for all without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual preference etc. Seems pretty much ideal to me.
The problem is that in America you can't join the political right without pledging allegiance to the anti-science anti-gay agenda and even the free market economics is little more than crony capitalism. Meanwhile the centre left comes under fire for not being extreme enough, as if that's some kind of failing. This is the same political left that subsidizes wind and solar power so heavily that other forms of renewable energy can't compete? Or that threatened a boycott of an entire corporation because one executive says something off the clock? Or, in the case of California, boycotts specific states whose social legislative agendas it disagrees with? Or that in many states across many professions makes union membership effectively mandatory? And that's before taking into account the "liberal religion" argument, which argues that American liberals have founded an atheist religion with all the accoutrements thereof and are trying to establish themselves as the official government religion by selectively using the establishment clause against other religions. It seems like the Democratic party uses Enlightenment ideals only by coincidence. What sorts of ideals permit the nomination and election of Donald Trump, a man whose word is not credible?
Keeping Hillary Clinton out could qualify as an ideal in my book. FWIW in 2020 I would vote Trump if it's Trump vs Clinton again.
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On July 06 2017 04:14 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 02:02 Plansix wrote:
Why Summer Jobs Don't Pay
Why can't kids today just work their way through college the way earlier generations did?
The answer to that question isn't psychology. It's math. A summer job just doesn't have the purchasing power it used to, especially when you compare it with the cost of college.
Let's take the example of a working-class student at a four-year public university who's getting no help from Mom and Dad. In 1981-'82, the average full cost to attend was $2,870. That's for tuition, fees and room and board.
The maximum Pell Grant award back then for free tuition help from the government was $1,800. That leaves our hypothetical student on the hook for just about $1,000. Add in a little pocket money, too — say $35 a week. That makes an extra $1,820 for the year on top of the $1,000 tuition shortfall.
Now, $3.35 an hour was the minimum wage back then. So, making $2,870 meant working 842 hours. That's 16 hours a week year-round — a decent part-time job. It's also about nine hours a day for three straight months — a full-time, seven-day-a-week summer job. Or, more likely, a combination of both. In short: not impossible. Far from it.
For today's public university student, though, the numbers have all changed in the wrong direction.
For the school year that just ended, the total of tuition, fees and room and board for in-state students at four-year public universities was $20,090. The maximum Pell Grant didn't keep pace with that: It was $5,815. That left our hypothetical student on the hook for $14,275.
A student would now have to work 37 hours a week, every week of the year, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, to get by. Research shows that when college students work more than 20 hours a week, their studies suffer. If they're working full time, many will take longer to finish and end up paying even more.
To cover today's costs with a low-skilled summer job? Over 90 days, a student would need to work 21.9 hours a day.
Of course, you could seek work in a city with a higher minimum wage like Washington, D.C. ($12.50, as of July 1) or Seattle, where it's $13 an hour, on its way to $15 (but there, low-wage workers may have lost out on annual income).
Rents tend to be higher in those places, too.
Plus side: If you're working that much, you may not need to pay rent because you're hardly sleeping.
No wonder students are borrowing so much these days.
SourceIn America, where you pay more for garbage. But everyone tells you it is worth the money. But in the 1980s we could pay for college on 16 hours of work a week year round. The education bubble is going to hurt.
It is like the mortgage crisis without all the urban blight and homelessness to really anger people. It is just young people being hopelessly indebt and unable to discharge their loans. I’m going to enjoy watching that entire industry shady industry implode.
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On July 06 2017 04:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:18 Doodsmack wrote:On July 06 2017 03:26 Buckyman wrote:On July 06 2017 03:13 KwarK wrote:
I don't see the issue with classical liberalism at all. A functioning free market economy that provides a strong foundation for people from all backgrounds to compete on an even basis through the provision of healthcare, education, housing and so forth for all without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual preference etc. Seems pretty much ideal to me.
The problem is that in America you can't join the political right without pledging allegiance to the anti-science anti-gay agenda and even the free market economics is little more than crony capitalism. Meanwhile the centre left comes under fire for not being extreme enough, as if that's some kind of failing. This is the same political left that subsidizes wind and solar power so heavily that other forms of renewable energy can't compete? Or that threatened a boycott of an entire corporation because one executive says something off the clock? Or, in the case of California, boycotts specific states whose social legislative agendas it disagrees with? Or that in many states across many professions makes union membership effectively mandatory? And that's before taking into account the "liberal religion" argument, which argues that American liberals have founded an atheist religion with all the accoutrements thereof and are trying to establish themselves as the official government religion by selectively using the establishment clause against other religions. It seems like the Democratic party uses Enlightenment ideals only by coincidence. What sorts of ideals permit the nomination and election of Donald Trump, a man whose word is not credible? Keeping Hillary Clinton out could qualify as an ideal in my book. FWIW in 2020 I would vote Trump if it's Trump vs Clinton again.
Keep in mind we're also talking about the nomination. This is an affirmative choice of Donald Trump. And I question why your vote would have changed, especially after seeing Trump in action after a couple months.
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On July 06 2017 04:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it. The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant.
I don't understand why you need home economics courses to understand that money spent on credit is money owed. You have to be pretty stupid to not understand that, or is there an American cultural issue I am missing? Pension funds and investments are fairly complicated though.
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On July 06 2017 04:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:16 KwarK wrote:On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it. The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant. I don't understand why you need home economics courses to understand that money spent on credit is money owed. You have to be pretty stupid to not understand that, or is there an American cultural issue I am missing? Pension funds and investments are fairly complicated though.
Rampant, unrestrained consumerism. People love to spend money that they don't have on things that they want. There's not enough self-control to delay the desire for immediate gratification.
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United States43989 Posts
On July 06 2017 04:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:16 KwarK wrote:On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it. The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant. I don't understand why you need home economics courses to understand that money spent on credit is money owed. You have to be pretty stupid to not understand that, or is there an American cultural issue I am missing? Pension funds and investments are fairly complicated though.
Come to America and you'll see. You're starting with an assumption that you don't buy things on credit if you have cash. That's not valid here. Revolving credit has been normalized in a very weird way and interest rates are viewed as less important than monthly payment amounts.
It's hard to really explain, coming from the UK to the US.
You don't buy cars in the US. You go to the weird megachurch car temple place and you tell them how much you can afford monthly. Then they tell you the biggest truck you can get for that (a Ford F150 costing the median annual salary pre-tax) and give you a shovel of popcorn, a giant soda and you watch a cinema screen of aspirational truck stuff. The good news is that there are no payments to make for 48 months and it's interest free for 72 months. Then three years later you go back and trade it in for a new one. The old truck is the down payment on the new truck and the balance owed on the old truck (which is all the balance) is rolled in to a greater debt in the new truck.
"Normal" in the US is very much not normal. Interest isn't really understood. It's normal to be making payments, if the payments are affordable then you're fine, it's only if they're unaffordable that you're irresponsible. I've been in the US for 3 years and I have over 20 credit cards and access to $100,000 or so of credit without giving them any real indication that I can be trusted with that kind of thing. It's a really weird country. But people base their expectations on what they see around them. If they see people around them doing things then the things must be okay.
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On July 06 2017 04:35 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On July 06 2017 04:16 KwarK wrote:On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it. The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant. I don't understand why you need home economics courses to understand that money spent on credit is money owed. You have to be pretty stupid to not understand that, or is there an American cultural issue I am missing? Pension funds and investments are fairly complicated though. Rampant, unrestrained consumerism. People love to spend money that they don't have on things that they want. There's not enough self-control to delay the desire for immediate gratification.
That and a credit/financial industry that is more than happy to feed that consumerism to enrich themselves. We still have not outlawed pay day lenders and check cashing companies. It took years and a couple suicides to prevent credit cards from offering cards at collages.
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gotta keep up appearances. why put a couple hundred away a month for retirement? it's so distant. for only $200 a month, you could be driving a 3 series! well, you'll pay almost twice the actual cost of the car over the 10 year life of the loan, but hey you're driving a BMW!
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On July 06 2017 04:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:16 KwarK wrote:On July 06 2017 04:12 Logo wrote:On July 06 2017 04:05 Plansix wrote:On July 06 2017 03:56 xDaunt wrote:On July 06 2017 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Edit: Logo - he is right. There are entire cities full of people that know nothing about finance. That isn’t their fault. We destroyed home economics courses long ago because our parents thought they knew better. I think the other thing that bears mentioning on the home ec courses is that the bar of required financial sophistication is far higher now than it used to be. Credit cards and other easy forms of credit completely changed the game. We're way past the simple balancing of a checkbook -- albeit the concept behind that particular skill is still the key to getting good credit and having as many financial tools as possible as your disposal. That is the problem. Our education system did not keep up with the complexity of systems we created. And at the same time we deregulated many of the companies running those systems. You can't just go to your local bank and ask to start a retirement fund with any confidence. So people just ignore he hall of mirrors and hope they can make due without. I'd imagine the recession also did a lot of damage to trust in financial services (I can find sources saying it's low or that it's declined, but nothing like a year over year chart) which probably hurts people's desire to participate in the system until they are dragged into it. The closest your grandparent's generation would have come to modern credit debt are the tales their grandparents would have told them about company scrip. Credit is a game changer and, just like the company store, the system has incentives that could not be more opposed to that of the participant. I don't understand why you need home economics courses to understand that money spent on credit is money owed. You have to be pretty stupid to not understand that, or is there an American cultural issue I am missing? Pension funds and investments are fairly complicated though.
You need to know how to build and maintain credit if you ever want to own a house (unless you're rich enough to pay all cash). So you need to know how to participate in that system to build credit. But then you get hit with medical expenses or other unpredictable expense while struggling to stay ahead in your budget and take on debt you can't just immediately pay off and are further dragged into the system. Or like even if you're just impulsive/bad at money management you can't just opt to not engage in the credit system to protect yourself if you want to own a house so you have to do something that's risky (for you).
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Car dealerships are a special American nightmare that no one really understands. No one likes them and everyone hates haggling with them. But they continue to exist because we can’t think of a world where they didn’t exist. And if they went away, where would the cars live when we don’t own them.
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On July 06 2017 04:27 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2017 04:20 LegalLord wrote:On July 06 2017 04:18 Doodsmack wrote:On July 06 2017 03:26 Buckyman wrote:On July 06 2017 03:13 KwarK wrote:
I don't see the issue with classical liberalism at all. A functioning free market economy that provides a strong foundation for people from all backgrounds to compete on an even basis through the provision of healthcare, education, housing and so forth for all without discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual preference etc. Seems pretty much ideal to me.
The problem is that in America you can't join the political right without pledging allegiance to the anti-science anti-gay agenda and even the free market economics is little more than crony capitalism. Meanwhile the centre left comes under fire for not being extreme enough, as if that's some kind of failing. This is the same political left that subsidizes wind and solar power so heavily that other forms of renewable energy can't compete? Or that threatened a boycott of an entire corporation because one executive says something off the clock? Or, in the case of California, boycotts specific states whose social legislative agendas it disagrees with? Or that in many states across many professions makes union membership effectively mandatory? And that's before taking into account the "liberal religion" argument, which argues that American liberals have founded an atheist religion with all the accoutrements thereof and are trying to establish themselves as the official government religion by selectively using the establishment clause against other religions. It seems like the Democratic party uses Enlightenment ideals only by coincidence. What sorts of ideals permit the nomination and election of Donald Trump, a man whose word is not credible? Keeping Hillary Clinton out could qualify as an ideal in my book. FWIW in 2020 I would vote Trump if it's Trump vs Clinton again. Keep in mind we're also talking about the nomination. This is an affirmative choice of Donald Trump. And I question why your vote would have changed, especially after seeing Trump in action after a couple months.
Trump was the best Republican candidate so it's no surprise he won when the establishment backed a Bush then had no follow up when he got utterly brutalized.
Vote changes because Trump may be bad but it's time for the Clinton Democrats to come to terms with the reality that their bullshit pursuit of putting an unelectable failure into office is a bigger threat to this country than Trump. Somehow they still haven't learned.
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Speaking of stupid things American do: I look forward to 3 years from now when the same people are complaining the Democrats nominated someone terrible(even if it is Sanders) and they will be forced to vote for Trump again. Florida will be half flooded and then they might admit, just maybe, that spite voting isn’t an effective form of protest.
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Well that comes with the presupposition that the Democrats would stop Florida from flooding. At this point I wouldn't trust them as the local dog catcher.
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EPT
